Sandra Bland’s Family Seeks Criminal Charges Against Texas Trooper

Family lawyers say he lacked probable cause to make the traffic stop, and committed assault and battery during the arrest.

Just days after grand jurors decided not to issue indictments in connection with the death of Sandra Bland, lawyers for her family urged prosecutors to file criminal charges against the state trooper who arrested her, according to The New York Times.

The Illinois resident was moving to Texas to start a new job in July when she was arrested by Brian Encinia after a routine traffic stop in Prairie View, the report notes.

“I can’t tell you what we’re going back to consider,” said Darrell Jordan, a special prosecutor assigned to the case, who cited Texas law regarding grand jury secrecy. “But you can do the math and figure out what it is.”

Cannon Lambert, a Chicago-based lawyer for the Bland family, said he believed that Trooper Encinia never had probable cause to make the traffic stop, that the trooper had committed assault and battery during the arrest, and that he had omitted key information from his incident report. The family also disputed a medical examiner’s finding that Ms. Bland, 28, killed herself.

“It was a false arrest,” said Mr. Lambert, who is representing the Bland family in a federal lawsuit against the Texas authorities. “He used excessive force. And those are things that should be prosecuted.”